Need
by Lascylla
Summary: Connected one-shots.  Orochimaru and Sakura in a world without anything left to fight for.  Except, perhaps, each other.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I am making no profit from this borrowing of characters. They belong to, well, someone else whose name I really can't recall right now - Masashi Kishimoto? Maybe. Not me, that's for sure XD

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Giddy emotion bubbled in Sakura's chest, blindingly intense and demanding to be released. She coughed a little to ease the sensation and breathed deeply, air burning away the painful, harshly wonderful feeling. She knew, without a doubt, that this was dangerous. To let herself feel so intensely about anyone – but especially about_ him_ – was unhealthy. Her captor, the man who killed the third Hokage and ravaged Konoha with only glee in his heart. How? How had she come to need him, his presence, his life, so fiercely that she could forget all of that? Her skin burned, ached where he had left his hand- a ring around her wrist where he caught her before she could slap him. He'd stared at her through hard golden eyes that scorched her flesh where they lay, sending a blissful shudder skittering down her spine. For an eternal moment his eyes rested on her throat, indeterminate and almost unfocused as he devoted his formidable mind to whatever problem he saw in the air before him. It didn't matter to Sakura, he could stand there as long as he liked, providing he kept holding her wrist in that vice-like grip. Soon, though, far too soon, his fingers loosened and he let her hand fall back to her side. His eyes flashed up and bored into her own, almost distracting her from the desperate harshness in his melodic voice.

_"Why?"_

Sakura shivered and valiantly resisted the urge to sway towards him. Her thoughts were scrambled, skittering away from her focus like rats from a torch light. She finally corralled enough brain cells to formulate some sort of response, though it wasn't the one she meant to give him. "Because I can't think when you're near me."

He struggled to control the urge to wrap his fingers around her throat and snap that pale, pretty neck. "Then try _harder_."

She could feel the frustration and anger pouring off him in delicious waves and she let them flood her senses. Better to feel this, to hurl herself into the fires of his rage than be abandoned again to her own emotions and her own thoughts. Hard-burning fingers gripped her chin and pulled her forward so that she was staring into his boiling-gold eyes. His face was twisted with anger and Sakura could only smile a bitter-broken grin and fall against his body with a harsh exhale of relief. He was hard and unyielding, no acceptance or comfort, but he was solid and real and he drove everything from her mind with his bright, burning, painful existence.

_"Thankyou."_

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_AN: _I was trying to write Ghost of Love, but it took a decidedly different turn :( anyway, thought I'd post this, just 'cause. Not enough Oro/Saku out there.

More than likely a one-shot. You can formulate your own reasons for this situation, though I do have my own in mind.

_Let me know if you liked/want more/hated, etc. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** See chapter one.

**Gravity**

The desolate, barren landscape of old Konoha is burned into the dark of her eyelids, a tormenting, inescapable reminder of how the world went so terribly wrong. They wander, a lost girl and her cold, careless guardian. He smiles grimly, bitter amusement stretching his thin lips into a hurting parody of happiness. She watches him pick his way gracefully through the ruins, masking the sight of her home in a mess of death and decay by absorbing his every movement. The sway of his long black hair as he leans over an interesting blur of something that she cannot – _willnot – _see. The ironic glitter of amused dismay in his cool-gold eyes. The purposeless tread of someone with nowhere to go, nothing to do, aside from go on existing. Sakura shivers, wraps her thin arms around her body. Even watching _him_ is like seeing the death of something. Walking dead, that is what they are. Two remnants of an old, finished world. Her breath hitches and hot tears leave scalding trails down her cheeks. Her strong-slender fingers dig painfully into the spare flesh above her elbows, gripping bone. He is beginning to fade into the distance now, she can barely make out the tall dark form bending and straightening, wandering and then not, as though the need to move comes and goes. He does not stop, per se, it's not so deliberate. He just loses momentum every now and then, coming to a point of not-moving. Sakura blinks her blurry eyes and hurries after him, tripping and stumbling as she refuses to let her eyes slip from him, fearing the sight of her ruined home. She can't see anything but him. If she does she will break. She can't break. He needs her. He doesn't know he does, but she can see it. They are all alone and though he might be a monster, there is still something heart-breakingly human at his core. The exception that proves the rule. The humanity that makes him a monster.

He does not slow for her, seems not to care whether she catches up. She does, though, panting and glad for the distraction of air burning her lungs and the sharp pain in her side. He does not acknowledge her, simply continues his halting inspection of the town he grew up in. She stays close now, sea-green eyes glued to him with a fanatical determination. She will not lose him. She has nothing left but him, her bitter enemy and now her dearest… something. He is not her friend. Not her lover. She exists in orbit around him, needs him like the sun, like the air. He is her gravity, a solid, dark reality that holds her to life, keeps her together in one cohesive whole. She cannot lose him, she will come apart without him, the nothingness of the space he does not occupy would tear her limb from limb, thought from thought.

He is gravity. He is utterly necessary to her continued existence.

He is needed.

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AN: Still no Ghost of Love. This is all I've got at the moment -.-


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: **See first chapter.

**New**

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The world is growing back. Scorched forests are aglow with new green leaves and pink buds, the sun parts the clouds and the natural order of the world is reasserting itself. For a while it seemed that even the animals had been destroyed- but they are venturing back out into the open now; birds and lizards and small, scurrying mammals.

Sakura follows the spectre of death, seeing everything but his glowing white skin and inky black hair. She has missed all these other colours! For so long the only colour in her world has been the cruel gold of his eyes; it is a treat to feast her deprived mind on the pinks and greens and blues. Brief happiness swells in her chest and she wants so badly to share it with someone. If only the only someone left wasn't_ him_.

With a defiant toss of her messy pink mane, the only girl in the world skips jauntily past her silent protector, giggling with the first joy the world has seen in a long time. She misses the slight curl of his lips, the spark of amusement in his eyes, because she is busy ignoring him, determined not to let him break her mood.

He catches her quickly; cool, elegant fingers wrapping 'round her delicate wrist. He spins her towards him and she frowns for a moment, before she catches the light in his eyes and wonders what he was like back when he was human. His lips find hers for the briefest moment, violently alive, yet restrained for the first time.

He leaves her stunned as he continues on his way.

Her sea-eyes glitter with emotion she can't name.

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A/N: No Ghost of Love right now . this just had to come out.


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